Customer Testimonials

MaxiFi’s informative and detailed videos and user manuals for in-depth help can save you time and frustration when starting your journey with MaxiFi while making some of the most critical decisions for your financial future. And all this information is accessible online for you to learn and use. However, there are times when it can be very daunting, even with the excellent information and available tools. That is when I reached out to Dan Royer, who can bring all the ins and outs of the different plans and metrics into focus, which is a huge help, a time saver, and the peace of mind that you have made the right choice with MaxiFi.
Thank you, Dan, for your amazing videos and wealth of shared knowledge and clarity.
And thank you, Larry and Jay, for the Office Hours sessions that provide ongoing expertise and assistance. I think many of us might have given up without the continued support. It is most appreciated.

I have found Professor Kotlikoff’s insights through his podcasts and books (“Money Magic” and “Get What’s Yours”) very helpful in personal financial planning over the last 5 years. In addition, his financial planning software - MaxiFi Planner is a precise and effective tool for mapping and iterating on your financial plan. If you have not yet checked out these resources, in my view, it would be well worth your time.

I have subscribed to Maxifi for six years now. I am retired and have a 40-year real estate investment management and finance background. Maxifi has allowed me to sensibly plan for my retirement in a conservative and user-friendly way. Maxifi offers many tutorials and also “Office Hours” webinars with Professor Kotlikoff several times each month. I listen to these webinars regularly and learn something new with each session. Also, Maxifi’s customer support team (Thank you Dan!) is amazingly responsive. I highly recommend you give Maxifi a test drive.

MaxiFi Planner costs $99 and will find safe ways to raise your lifetime spending power by tens of thousands of dollars. I write to you a lot about navigating the stock market. But MaxiFi Planner can make you money with no risk whatsoever. For $99, it can produce a huge return for sure!

I just have to say thank you to the folks at MaxiFi Planner. I’ve been using MaxiFi for 2 years now and feel much more comfortable about my retirement decisions due to the thorough modeling and projections done by the system. Last week I decided to purchase an “Expert Review” to ensure that I hadn’t input anything incorrectly and so that I could properly model my planned geographic move when I retire. I can’t say enough about my interactions with Dan Royer during my “Expert Review.” Dan was pleasant, super-knowledgeable, and was patient with every question that I asked. I’ll be using the tool every year – just to stay on top of all that occurs as we move through life! GREAT TOOL with GREAT SUPPORT. What more can you ask for?

I want to commend the team for introducing the Roth Conversion Optimization module. It's a game-changer. Previously, I would spend hours running dozens of model iterations, manually adjusting Roth conversion amounts to find the optimal strategy. I even created a basic Excel model using Solver, but it lacked MaxiFi's accuracy, particularly in areas like tax bracket and IRMAA changes over time.

The results speak for themselves: my new MaxiFi-optimized plan increases my lifetime discretionary spending by over $100,000. This more than justifies my subscription fees for years to come!
I should also mention that a few years ago, I paid a Certified Financial Planner over $5,000 to provide an optimized conversion strategy. MaxiFi's strategy is far superior.
Thank you all for your excellent work!

First time EVER that I've had confidence in any planning program. For REAL. I cannot imagine who wouldn't love this planning tool! It should be mandatory, actually, especially since Larry knows so much about social security, Medicare, etc.--who better to design a planning program.

I am so happy the Roth business was included--I'm unfortunately probably not going to benefit, per Jay, but one never knows--every dollar counts.

I think I'll gift a program to my stepson who's a math geek and always into saving/creating wealth. Great gift!

Thanks again

. . . the real distinction for financial advisors is not MaxiFi’s cost-effective price point, but its potential to frame the entire financial planning conversation differently – around the long-term impact of a client’s decisions on their long-term sustainable standard of living, instead of “just” their assets.

Not only has MaxiFi provided us with a means to answer the burning retirement planning questions we
had initially, it has also provided us with a way to explore new issues and questions as they arise. For
instance, we are considering moving to another state when we retire. Because MaxiFi accounts for state
and federal taxes, it permits us to explore how moving to different jurisdictions impacts our living
standard. It also permits us to examine how choices such as whether to buy a home or rent, and in the
former case, whether to take on a mortgage or pay cash, impact our lifetime discretionary spending
resources. We can also explore how the solution varies depending on the size/cost of the home we
select.
To me, MaxiFi is a no-brainer. It empowers us to make informed decisions based on a range of
reasonable assumptions and scenarios we can specify and understand, and it guides us on how to adjust
our behavior as events unfold and outcomes are realized. It is very easy to use, and it is a much safer
and smarter way to prepare for retirement than the conventional financial planning approach with its
simplistic one-size-fits-all rules of thumb, strong (and often unstated/untested) assumptions, and high
potential failure rates.

I have used your company's software for about a year. It has been very useful to me to learn the more refined concepts that you use (and are well explained), and then quickly be able to quantify how well my family's finances are doing currently and over our life span and to run Alternate Scenarios to see how to improve them. Several other persons that I recommend MaxiFi too have had similar experiences. (One stated it was "Life Changing".)

Just want to say that I use ESPlanner and now the new Maxifi. You and your team have an excellent product. I love the underlying concept of the Discretionary Income and, frankly, the new additions to the program (e.g. Roth Conversions, etc), make it the best for an individual investor---easy and straightforward. I am retired and a CFP and I love the simplicity and options of your programs which is why I have been a long term user.

I have used MaxiFi for over a year now and I can’t say enough about my satisfaction not only with the software but also the support and webinars that are provided. The ability to run different scenarios for taking Social Security or doing Roth IRA conversions has been wonderful in terms of giving me confidence in making these major decisions. I had worked with a financial planner for over 35 years and when she retired I decided to go it alone. Without MaxiFi that would not have been possible.

“I’m a recently retired physician and I find Maxifi Planner one of the most comforting tools available. It provides me the reassurance that my wife and I will have a comfortable retirement and we can afford to enjoy our future. Most financial plans are static documents that quickly become obsolete. Maxifi is dynamic and puts the power of financial planning into my hands which helps me sleep soundly and comfortably. Thank you, Prof Kotlikoff and staff.”

I’ve been a user of Maxi Fi Planner for four years before investing in a 90-minute Expert Review of my Base Plan with Dany Royer. Dan provided an “information rich” session that provided new ideas how to utilize the software and explore future financial scenarios. Maxi Fi Planner provides a useful tool at a very reasonable cost for those retirees who want to navigate the complexity of retirement withdrawals on their own.

Just wanted to pass along my appreciation for MaxiFi Planner. I am
learning how correctly to enter my information, and the 2024 results
agree well with my own 2024 budget projections. (What I cannot do with
my spreadsheet is to project the next 30+ years!)
I want to acknowledge Dan Royer's explanations, and his capable
assistance handling subtle details, like how to make a Roth retirement
account function like a Reserve Account.

And, I appreciate how you have built into, or linked MaxiFi Planner to,
your social-security maximizing software. I used that program for 8
years to track and maximize my social security, and it matched my actual
monthly benefit, and my childrens' benefits, to the dollar! Nice to
have it in MaxiFi, tracking and updating social-seurity benefits from my
earnings history.

I purchased Maxifi Premium yesterday and all I can say is WOW. Thank you for building such a well designed, sufficiently sophisticated, and superbly useful platform.

I have been incredibly impressed how helpful Maxifi has been for my financial planning, especially at the price! I know it sounds like hyperbole, but it has truly affected our retirement in a very positive way.
We truly live differently than we would have lived without Maxifi helping us plan. Again thank you thank you.

Hi Larry, enjoyed your webinar yesterday! Informative. I read your book Money Magic about 18 months ago. Great points and takeaways, especially on financial advisors who all seem to work from the same playbook. I have used Maxifi for about a year and find it easy to use, once you get up the learning curve . I recommend both.

My name is Monica, and I am a blind screen reader user. I want to commend the MaxiFi team on the accessibility of your product. I have been looking for an accessible financial planning tool for some time now, and MaxiFi checks the box. I want to underscore how unusual that is, so kudos to you. … Overall, this is a great experience. Thank you.

MaxiFi has been a critical financial planning tool for us over the past five years to model different scenarios in preparation for retirement. I appreciate the intuitive process for data entry to establish a baseline plan. We have modeled changes such as relocation to another home; with MaxiFi giving a clear impact to our long-term finances. And we have relied on MaxiFi to guide us on major events such as the timing of starting Social Security using Maximize Plan. MaxiFi is unique in financial planners in that it focuses on the spending levels you can sustain for life based on your current and expected resources. This helps us to establish a baseline budget for each year. Finally, the Monte Carlo analysis has given visibility to any concerns regarding our long-term financial stability.

Occupation:
Location: Indianapolis

Cheers,

I have Maxifi now and you are so right - it's amazingly helpful, even at my initial week of using it! I am awestruck by the knowledge reflected in the creation of this tool. You and your company are national assets.
Just from what I have in the maximized plan I have a ton more confidence about a plan. My homemade excel planner was way too simplistic. I only made it to see if I was in the ballpark so I could retire early. Maxifi is way beyond anything I could have even thought of. The only bad news was that it confirmed that I'll have a higher marginal tax bracket. At least I can stop worrying about handling that now.
You had a great quote in a recent podcast with Liz Weston when she said many people want a person to be their financial planner, you said "Maxifi is my financial planner"!
Take care, and I hope you stay around as long as your mom did.

I found MaxiFi Planner after becoming fed up with predatory “professional” planners. They seem to uniformly want thousands of dollars of my precious assets to answer questions MaxiFi can answer for $99 a year.

I was building my own planner for myself, since I’m an Excel guru and strong on financial theory. Now that I’ve examined MaxiFi, I am confident I can abandon that effort and trust MaxiFi to guide me.

I find their sensible approach, to treat Discretionary Spending as an unknown rather than an input a wonderfully sensible way to proceed. And after some misgivings about using a low default ROR for investments currently earning in the double-digits, I see the wisdom of their approach and am sold.

I recommend MaxiFi to anyone wanting a handle on their financial future. I’m giving gift subscriptions to both my kids and have recommended it several times already.

Most investors understand the importance of saving with a Roth IRA account or an employer sponsored 401K account for retirement. However, most people are much less prepared to answer questions like when they should start drawing social security or how to figure out which type of retirement account to withdrawal from first, when to do start, and at what rate to withdrawal. MaxiFi Planner answers those questions, as well as many other questions you haven’t even thought of yet. The software is easy to use and provides amazingly detailed financial recommendations which are supported by advanced Monte Carlo analysis. MaxiFi Planner is an outstanding resource for regular investors as well as for professional investors with a large financial planning practice.

I have used MaxiFi and ESP before that since 2007. Not only do I know it to be a robust and accurate tool, but it also lets me sleep at night. Nothing else I have seen provides an economics-based foundation for evaluating our current financial situation, but also for projecting our future. It allowed me to retire early without fear and live well along the way. Thank you, Larry and team!

I’ve used ESPlanner since its earliest days and recently tried MaxiFi. The user experience is dramatically improved. Despite the fact that I probably spend as much time planning my own retirement as anyone, MaxiFi recommended that I slightly tweak my Social Security claiming strategy and make a change to withdrawal order that resulted in an increase in lifetime consumption. I believe there may even be a better withdrawal strategy and MaxiFi will help me test that theory. I’m a fan!

Larry, I enjoyed the seminar today. I would like to give a quick shout out to your excellent support staff. I am a MaxiFi user, and I have emailed and received very prompt responses back even on the weekends. A gentleman named Dan was particularly helpful.

I just want to tell you that I have been struggling with a retirement decision for 2 years now that has tied me up in knots. I built my own spreadsheets, did all kinds of painful calculations, and invariably, I just ended up staring at the ceiling every night. How much will I owe in taxes? When is the best time to take out retirement funds? When should we go for SS? Yesterday morning I did a Google search and found Maxifi. I purchased the Premium copy and loaded all of my info in and in 45 minutes I finally understood that maybe I am ok after all. I cannot believe how incredible this software is. I was up until 4 am raving about it to my wife, showing her reports, etc. etc. etc. I still need to learn a bit more about some of the parameters and whether it properly accounts for things like SALT caps when calculating federal income tax…but this thing is just AMAZING!!! LOVE IT!!

PS, The more I play with this tool (and I spent the entire weekend playing with it!), the more I am in love with it. It makes it so easy to grasp what is possible or not in the future and it allows me to make decisions that were a little blurry because I was previously shooting in the dark. I am really kicking myself for not finding you folks a few years ago.

I’ve been using ESPlanner and, more recently, MaxiFi for nine years now, during which time my wife and I finished our careers. The models I developed with these products allowed us to retire earlier and with less anxiety than we otherwise could have. There are few software products I’ve ever purchased that have had as much effect on our lives. I feel fortunate that this product even exists, because its approach of optimizing for a smooth consumption glide-path over our remaining lives seems exactly right. Highly recommended.

I have been using MaxiFi for a number of years now, as I approach retirement. It has given me confidence and insights about how to set myself up for a secure retirement. it is easy to use and very reasonably priced. It is also regularly updated to keep up with tax law changes and even with changes in economic outlook. It's "year at a glance" projections and other reports are invaluable for understanding likely future tax liabilities, Like most people planning retirement I use a number of different tools, but MaxiFi is the single most valuable one in my toolbox. Heartily recommended. My "desert island" retirement planning tool.

Thank you for your informative and educational webinars. I renewed my maxifi subscription in September. Using your program gave me the confidence to retire last December. There is a pub on the north side of the River Liffey Liffey in Dublin that has this quote on the outside, it’s a fun pub too. The Irish do have a way with words…:) "If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." -- George Bernard Shaw

I love your customer support. I bought your two consumer software products over the last few days. They are very helpful. I had some specific questions on items that I needed to understand and adjust in the programs. I sent the questions to support Sat and Sun (today). I got both (very on point) answers today (Sun). Very impressive!

I strongly recommend MaxiFi Planner. It is an incredibly powerful and comprehensive financial tool that takes the guesswork out of planning for the future. By generating multiple alternative plans using the software, I am able to see the future implications of critical financial decisions that I may make today. I have found it to be an invaluable resource as I approach retirement, including the ability to accurately evaluate the prudence of renting vs. purchasing a vacation home, working an extra year or two, helping kids out with a downpayment for a home, etc. MaxiFi Planner has given my wife and me peace of mind that we were unable to find elsewhere. I do not know how anyone can have confidence in a financial plan without it. As an added bonus, Dan and Larry are quick to respond to any questions and the webinars are very informative. I have recommended the software to many and will continue to do so.

MaxiFi is obviously very thorough and considers many variables simultaneously. Given how complex things have become (taxes, investments, etc.), having a tool like this is indispensable.

Thank you for the new Maxifi features and updates. We love the Maxifi system and think one of the best elements was our one hour consultation meeting with Dan Royer. Dan was extremely helpful, teaching us how to use the system and intrepret the various reports. Dan is very knowledgeable and extremely patient in explaining the various capabilities of the Maxifi system. Offering the one hour phone consultation was a truly valuable service to my wife and I, and I highly recommend it to anyone who uses Maxifi. After our call with Dan, my wife and I felt much better about our retirement planning and we made important adjustments to our plan based on our consultation that I would not have considered if I had simply used the Maxifi system without Dan’s consultation. We plan to request consultation again next year to ensure we are on track. Thank you again.

Kudos! These webinars are fantastic. Love MaxiFi … great support. Alex did a great job hosting the Q&A format today.

Many have asked how we were able to decide on our life-changing decision to leave our jobs and relocate to a less expensive state, given so many variables. For the past five years, I read financial books, interviewed CFPs/FAs/RAs/brokers, and used the free planning platforms on investment account sites. I found all of that illuminating - and frustrating! Consumer financial planning platforms and advisors ask you to provide a budget, estimate Social Security, etc., and then their software rates your probability of success. I believe these platforms favor asset management companies and advisors because both benefit from your investments, so they're invested in people retaining principal and living off interest. If you're very fortunate, you'll leave a "legacy". I felt this wasn't the whole picture, at least for us. In Jane Bryant Quinn's "How to Make Your Money Last," I found reference to BU Economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff. He created the MaximizeMySocialSecurity site and the more comprehensive planning platform: Maxifi Planner. This is the only financial planning platform that is based in economics. After you input your unique data, including fixed expenses, it tells you what your budget for discretionary expenses will be based on your lifetime income from all sources, including Social Security. After you create a Base Plan, then you can generate alternative Plans. For example, if you want to leave a legacy, then you can model that outcome. If you want to have more discretionary income in the future, then you can plan ahead for lower expenses, more savings, higher income, and/or taking SS at the latest date. The Maxifi platform calculates taxes and can suggest insurance options. If you live in a state with high taxes, you could consider moving to a state with lower taxes. For couples, there's Survivor modeling. If you want to run Monte Carlo simulations, that's an option. I've also paid for consultation with their expert staff. They do not give investment advice - the consultation is a deep dive into your Base Plan so you can feel confident about your inputs and their system. That's how we decided we were ready to change our lives. There is a professional advisor version of their platform, and their site does offer a list of companies using it. Even if you love your existing advisor or investment site planner, you might still benefit from comparing their plan with a Base Plan of your own making.

Economic Security Planning and ESPlanner topped all the reviews of financial planning software when I was looking several years ago. I recently converted to the MaxiFi application. MaxiFi is a powerful, comprehensive tool and it is very easy to use. The team at Economic Security Planning is extremely responsive. The webinars and emails featuring tips and insight from Larry and other industry experts are a real bonus to my subscription.

Thank you for the update. I genuinely appreciate hearing your views and also the fact that you take a realistic and cautious approach to assumed returns. So many outfits are pushing numbers that no one is likely to achieve. This is but one of many reasons your company stands out above the others!

I have been using Maxifi for my personal use for the last two or three years, and I think it is very powerfull and easy-to-use tool. I upgraded to the pro version as part of trying to help young adults to learn about personal finance, so that they can get themselves on a productive path towards a healthy financial situation. Being able to model different scenarios and illustrate the impact of different actions is a powerful capability of Maxifi, and I believe that will be very beneficial for them to see the long-term impacts of their decisions. It is easy to say that someone should pursue a better paying job or save a larger percentage of their income, but actually seeing the impact on the possible lifestyle should be a powerful motivator to educate themselves on personal finance and to pursue actions that demonstratively will improve their situation. I was recently able to stop regular work myself, and for now this new effort is a volunteer action on my part out of personal interest and because I see a need. Too many young adults just starting their working careers are not sufficiently informed about the impact of the choices that they are making (401k, health care, savings, investments). They will be so much better off if they make good choices early on. I don’t have a financial planner certification, and while I will be taking that curriculum to further educate myself, I am not aiming to provide paid-for advice as a certified planner. Rather, I want to provide individual coaching and make people aware, so that they are able to make better decisions themselves. I see Maxifi as a great tool to support that intent. Over the past few months I have attended the webinars that you have held. I think that they have been very informative, and I really appreciate both the direct content as well as the extensive Q&A that you provided. Very well done.

I have used numerous financial planning programs over the years. Maxifi is the most detailed software program I have ever used. The thoughtfulness that the designers and programmers have implemented into this financial program is immediately evident as you input your personal information. It really gives you the insight and confidence to tell if your own financial planning is on track to help you reach your goals.I am self employed and my wife works for a large corporation in the Midwest. Maxifi easily handles our various work and personal savings accounts as well as other numerous savings and expense variables,(I.e. Savings rate, employer matching, SEP savings, RSUs, Roth conversion and much more). Whenever I have had questions regarding how to use certain components of Maxifi, their support staff has been very helpful and responsive. They also have an excellent selection of online webinars to watch as well as ongoing interactive seminars. It really is one of the finest software programs you can get to make sure you are on the road to financial freedom.

Tools such as Fidelity's Retirement Planner do a good job showing wealth accumulation in a variety of potential market cycles (significantly below average, below average and average) but they do not come close to answering the question they everyone should be asking .. "Can I safely retire and what their spending levels should look like". You called this out beautifully and I know this article will open many people's eyes why they need to take an economics-based approach. As a Certified Financial Planner, I use MaxiFi when I am completing my client's overall financial plan. I continually hear that my clients love being able to understand what their discretionary spending can look like in today's dollars projected for the rest of their life. MaxiFi also makes it super easy to update the projections on an annual basis. While there are numerous features of MaxiFi that help your users with retirement planning, I think the tax modeling and projections are most valuable. The ease to create multiple scenarios to determine the best accounts to hold investments and to determine the ideal Roth conversion strategy to build the highest lifetime discretionary spending tops my list of features available. I look forward to your next article!!!!

I first became aware of Dr. Kotlikoff’s software a couple of years ago as I approached retirement. This coincided with the time the Social Security Administration was making changes to their claiming rules. I was concerned that I make the right claiming decision. I purchased the software and ran several scenarios in order to decide how to maximize my benefits. Doing so helped me increase my lifetime benefits by many tens of thousands of dollars.

I then looked at Dr. Kotlikoff’s Maxifiplanner software and was impressed with the approach that he, as an economist, had taken. As far as I know it is unique among financial planning software in that its goal is to enable you to maximize your long term or lifetime spendable income. Once you load your personal information and your assumptions, you can compare your base case with an optimum case to display how much more spendable income you will have each year by optimizing. Depending on your personal situation, the increase over your lifetime can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The software is easy to use and very flexible. Dr Kotlikoff and his staff are committed to their approach. They continue to add features to improve the software on a continuing basis and then makes the updates available to subscribers.

What I have described is the very basics of what the software will do.

The Premium Household subscription is only $139 per year and has the added benefit of Monte Carlo Risk Analysis included so you can run tests to see the range of outcomes your investments might have going forward.

I believe this is the best investment I have ever made and I encourage you to subscribe. You will not be disappointed.

MaxiFi offers a user-friendly, robust algorithm, which I recommend to anyone doing retirement planning. Dan Royer is a rock star whose Expert Review was exceedingly accretive to all of my scenario analyses.

MaxiFi it has been VERY empowering over the past year to try out different scenarios to see a snapshot of what our finances can do (or not do) for us as we look at relocation options and retirement… or what we like to call, Life 3.0 :-) MaxiFi answered so many questions we had, as well as offered information to questions we never even knew to ask.

I have been using your products for several years and the webinars you are having to help people understand how to better use them are a great idea. I have not gotten to utilize more than probably 20% of its capabilities. Now I’m using it more. It is providing me with a sense of confidence when I’m capable of putting in different possibilities and able to see what the numbers could be, should I do this or that.

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Maxifi can be faulted for defaulting to overly conservative assumptions for you to change as needed, but it cannot be faulted for attempting to prepare you for the level of discretionary spending you will have--come what may. In the end, it is up to you to decide if the scenarios you create in Maxifi are courses of action worth taking by comparing a base case of the status quo with doing something different in an alternative scenario. Whether the change in your annual and lifetime discretionary spending is worth it or not is entirely up to the user, but at least you can validate your decisions with something more objective than a gut feeling. If we are honest with ourselves, we are looking for some reassurance and validation of our decisions. Maxifi is a great tool to quantify changes in our finances and make a more informed decision about what, if anything, to do next.

I wanted to give you a special Thank You for this most current webinar. I was unable to attend in person but have just listened to it. While I have found all of the webinars since the May-ish time frame interesting and helpful to running the software, this was far and away the one most on-point to what I lose sleep over. It appears via MaxiFi (and New Retirement and a couple others, for that matter) that I am in pretty good shape, barring major catastrophe. This will allow me to focus on using MaxiFi in my key question areas: 1) Timing of SS (my FRA is next August so I have pretty finite numbers) claim, 2) Using 401k $ to pay off mortgage, 3) Exploring the IRA to Roth IRA over the next 5-6 years until 72, 4) Interplay of the 3 (although I suspect my resources are not sufficient to do all 3). Today's webinar has addressed 2 and 3 individually and of course the application excels out item 1 (which was not as great a difference as I expected, perhaps because my pension is not sufficient to cover my expenses). So this was GREAT! I will probably not sit down with the software and really work it in detail until winter sets in, but I am looking forward to laying out the alternative scenarios and running them (I've already made too much money this year with my salary, severance and pension (how often do people tell you they have made too much money!! :) ), so I consider these alternatives 2021 and on items). Again - thanks so much! Please keep doing the webinars!

Several years before my planned retirement, I researched most of the retirement calculators on the market. I was privileged to be a beta-tester on the one the largest and have been a subscriber to four of the best. It was my “hobby” to compare their results against each other and my overly-complicated spreadsheet. Well, I threw away the spreadsheet and now use Maxi-Fi to review and update my projections and to run different scenarios when life changes. Not only is it a great interface, but it is also the only software that uses the principles of consumption smoothing. In practical language, that means that no matter the ups and downs of my income and expenses, I learn what living standard I can reasonably expect over the span of my life. The computations are complex, the results are easy to see and understand.

I have been a Maxifi user for about one year. As I have just reached retirement I had some complex questions about Net Present Value and annuity versus lump sum scenario comparisons. Dan in Customer Support provided extensive and thoughtful answers, even working late on a Friday night and on Saturday morning. This level of customer support is beyond any I have seen. Thank you very much!

I’ve been using Maxifi for about a year and have found it extremely useful. I wish I had started using it a lot earlier as it has highlighted some weaknesses in my retirement planning which I’m now taking corrective action on. Though the software is very complete and powerful I appreciate its ease of use. I especially find the ability to quickly do what-if alternative scenarios – such as Roth Conversions – to be especially helpful. Additionally, your customer service is outstanding. I’ve always received quick and helpful responses. Most recently, I had some questions on the Living Standard Monti Carlo reports and the President of the Maxifi, Larry Kotlikoff, called me personally to talk about them. I’d be hard pressed to find that type of service elsewhere!

I LOVE your MaxiFi webinars. Haven’t missed any of them. They are a gift to the user community to be able to learn about topics that can and usually do impact people in their retirement years. In addition, the seminars highlight how to get more functional and intelligence out of the Maxifi tool. I’ve spent hours and hours using it when I need to understand how a financial decision could effect my wife and I. While I’m here, I want to comment on one of the best parts of this tool - 1) assuming the client lives to 100, and 2) assuming no rate of return above that of inflation as the default way to think about investment returns. I love it. I love being able to look at a standard of living that does not rest on assumptions of high return rates. My wife and I also use a trusted CFP, who naturally is confident that she’s able to earn her fees honorably. So now that we have Maxifi, at the start of the year, I updated our balances and simply observed that the CFP had in fact increased our standard of living, even without her having to produce the returns she predicts. A Win-Win for us. I’d have to say, using Maxify and watching the webinars has made me more confident in our retirement plans, and eased my mind of a lot of worry.

I’m a 72 years old retired military and commercial airline pilot who holds a part-time occupation as a flight instructor for an international flight school. I’ve been using Maxifi for more than 3 years now and I could not conceive a better way to provide me with a “ road map” of my financial well being other than perhaps hiring a financial planner. I particularly like the flexibility it offers to answer the “ what if” questions. As an example, my wife and I were contemplating buying a winter home and we were uncertain as to whether we could afford it and the financial impact it would have on our future. MaxiFi answered those questions and provided us with spreadsheets and visualization over the years of our financial standing through Monte Carlo simulations, which gave us confidence in our planning. Without a doubt, MaxiFi has been one of the better financial investment we’ve made.

I am a self-employed Business and Accounting Technology Consultant for the construction industry. I am also an Excel Guru and decided using your software saved way more time than I could do on my own. It is also much more accurate. I tell many people about your software. It’s fantastic! I believe I will be using it until I die!

I have been using your products to plan my retirement for several years now. I am 3 years from retirement. Don’t know what I would do without Maxifi. I have consulted with Dan a couple of times. He is knowledgeable, helpful, and generous with his time. I have recommended your services to several friends and relatives.

I'm a psychologist with about 5 or so years to retirement. I've been using Maxifi for about 6 months now. I use it for both social security and financial planning. I'm exceedingly happy with the program! The program has a vast number of features and calculations - too many to describe here, really! At first, I was a bit reluctant to purchase, because of my poor experiences with other 'retirement' planning programs and even financial planning services. One key difference is that Maxifi takes into account all of the various types of accounts (i.e., real estate, social security, investment accounts and 401k's) and calculates how different lifestyle choices might affect the results. For example, I wondered how continuing to work (either full time or part time) will affect both social security and retirement account withdrawals. You can enter any number of alternative scenarios and Maxifi will calculate the results. In my opinion, this program is better than anything out there. I think it even replaces the need for financial planners, because no financial planner will have expertise in all the areas covered by Maxifi. However, if you are committed to working with a financial planner, Maxifi will produce a report to provide to her so that she can review your plans - which will save you more than the cost of the program.

Yes, I know this is a glowing review - I have no financial relationship with Laurence Kotlikoff, Economic Security Planning, or Maxify. I am simply a satisfied user.

My wife and I have utilized MaxiFi Planner for several years to ensure that we can sustain our lifestyle in retirement while also paying necessary expenses. MaxiFi Planner is by far the best financial and investment planning software that I have ever worked with. It is also the easiest to use. Reports are generated in a snap encouraging entry of multiple scenarios and assessing their results. MaxiFi Planner is thorough and meticulous in its calculations taking the pain out of data entry and providing assurance that future income and expense projections at a point in time are correct. The model automatically calculates annual social security payments based upon earnings history, medicare premiums based upon future earnings, income taxes based upon state of residence and a host of other variables. Unique to MaxiFi Planner is its distinction between discretionary and fixed spending. No other planning tool that I have encountered makes this distinction but I think that MaxiFI is correct that individuals and families focus on what is left over after fixed expenditures are paid and strive to maximize and smooth discretionary expenditures over their lifetimes. One of my favorite reports from the model is Year at a Glance. This displays, for each year, the individual sources of income, the breakdown of Fixed Expenditures and what remains for Discretionary Spending. This helps allay any concerns with how MaxiFi Planner is generating the income to support our lifestyle. I am also beginning to use the Monte Carlo Risk Analysis tool and am impressed with how integrated it is with the Base and Maximized Plans. I am very intrigued with The Index of Expected Lifetime Utility as a simple gauge for evaluating alternative investment strategies and risk profiles. Every year before finalizing our financial plan, we engage Dan Royer from MaxiFi Planner to review our model inputs and results. He is not only an expert on the inner workings of the model making many helpful suggestions but is a pleasure to work with. I wholeheartedly endorse MaxiPlanner as a financial planning tool!

Just want to say many thanks for the recent improvements. I have been looking at with various magnitudes of partial Roth conversions to find the “sweet spot” for us … between IRS 22% and 24% and a couple of IRRMA thresholds in between. The improved Roth conversion inputs in the IRA settings along with the separation of Roth and traditional IRA balances in the reports makes it much easier.

MaxiFi is a well thought out personal finance tool that allows you to enter your housing costs and assets and it tells you what you can spend on everything else (discretionary spending). There are also many customizable features for other "special" receipts or expenses including other real estate investments. Couple this with a behind the scene first class technical support team and "Ask Larry" online questions and you have a top notch tool to assist planning for personal finances. Thanks so much for developing this tool for me to find and use. I started with your kindle edition "Maximize My Social Security" book about 6 years ago (read it 5 times immediately to be sure it sunk in) when I was a few years out from retirement and then used your software tool for it and then moved to this tool once I discovered it. I've been using it for a few years now and find it extremely helpful in my planning as I approached and am now in retirement.

I have used your company's software for about a year. It has been very useful to me to learn the more refined concepts that you use (and are well explained), and then quickly be able to quantify how well my family's finances are doing currently and over our life span and to run Alternate Scenarios to see how to improve them. Several other persons that I recommend MaxiFi too have had similar experiences. One stated it was "Life Changing".

Dan is an excellent teacher - approachable, patient, extremely knowledgeable - and the Expert Review consultation was a life-changer for me. I now know how to use this powerful tool with confidence. Thank you!

As a financial executive evaluating the opportunity for early retirement, I was keenly aware of the importance of working through the numbers to build, evaluate, and execute a solid plan. Before discovering MAXIFI, I had tried several competing fee-based products, many of the top-rated financial calculators, and the financial planning firm provided through my company. I even developed my own spreadsheet-based models and Monte Carlo simulations. While these efforts were useful, nothing beats the combination of analytical power and ease-of-use provided by MAXIFI. MAXIFI’s differentiated approach indicates exactly how much I can spend each year in retirement, rather than only providing more-difficult-to-interpret probability statistics. MAXIFI’s flexibility lets me quickly evaluate and optimize various “what -if” scenarios and compare them to my base plan, so I can be more confident in my decisions. MAXIFI is backed by an extremely responsive customer support team that is among the best I have ever encountered. I can confidently say that you will be hard-pressed to find a better financial planning value than MAXIFI.

I am very impressed and so happy I purchased the app. I can see all the attention and care that went into it.
I love the fact that the discretionary spending is the output.

Are you at a fork in the road about a major financial decision? The amazingly detailed MaxiFi program can calculate and project the long term effects of your decision far into the future. MaxiFi is the holy grail of long term personal financial planning.

I really appreciate your patience in dealing with my questions. You switched on the lightbulb, and now it all makes sense.

Maxifi is such a great product and has helped me to truly understand what my retirement finances will look like in the future. Couldn’t be happier with product, webinars, and the support.

MaxiFi saved my bacon this year. I had been using it for about two years, recommending it to any of my friends and family who believe in long-term financial planning, and so I had a pretty good personal baseline for future plans using the default, conservative estimates for returns and inflation. Then, I was laid off from my job this January. Having that financial information at my fingertips and having the ability to game different strategies, like earlier Social Security, allowed me to project forward and reassure my wife that we were in good financial shape and could continue to live as we had before the layoff. The comfort and reassurance that MaxiFi helped me pass on to my wife was beyond price.

"I have used numerous financial planning programs over the years. Maxifi is the most detailed software program I have ever used. The thoughtfulness that the designers and programmers have implemented into this financial program is immediately evident as you input your personal information. It really gives you the insight and confidence to tell if your own financial planning is on track to help you reach your goals. I am self employed and my wife works for a large corporation in the midwest. Maxifi easily handles our various work and personal savings accounts as well as other numerous savings and expense variables, (I.e. Savings rate, employer matching, SEP savings, RSUs, Roth conversion and much more). Whenever I have had questions regarding how to use certain components of Maxifi, their support staff has been very helpful and responsive. They also have an excellent selection of online webinars to watch as well as ongoing interactive seminars. It really is one of the finest software programs you can get to make sure you are on the road to financial freedom."

I found MaxiFi Planner after becoming fed up with predatory “professional” planners. They seem to uniformly want thousands of dollars of my precious assets to answer questions MaxiFi can answer for $99 a year.
I was building my own planner for myself, since I’m an Excel guru and strong on financial theory. Now that I’ve examined MaxiFi, I am confident I can abandon that effort and trust MaxiFi to guide me.
I find their sensible approach, to treat Discretionary Spending as an unknown rather than an input a wonderfully sensible way to proceed. And after some misgivings about using a low default ROR for investments currently earning in the double-digits, I see the wisdom of their approach and am sold. I recommend MaxiFi to anyone wanting a handle on their financial future. I’m giving gift subscriptions to both my kids and have recommended it several times already.

Mary and I are both retired now and live in Phoenix, Arizona. I was in IT management and Mary was a CFO for an insurance group. I believe your software is just as valuable in managing our money IN retirement as it was in planning FOR retirement. Thanks to you all.

I’ve been using Maxifi for my personal financial planning, and it has completely transformed the way I manage my finances. What sets Maxifi apart from other financial planning tools is its unique approach to generating discretionary spending. Traditional tools typically ask you how much you plan to spend and then predict if you’ll have enough money to retire. Maxifi flips this model on its head.

Maxifi starts by understanding your assets and fixed costs, allows you to enter special expenses and income, and then determines how much you can comfortably spend each year. This method provides a clear and realistic view of your financial future, allowing you to make more informed decisions about your spending and saving habits. It takes the guesswork out of financial planning and gives you a concrete plan that adapts to your lifestyle and financial goals.

I have been using traditional tools for years. Since using Maxifi, I feel more confident about my financial future and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly how much I can spend in my retirement years. If you’re looking for a financial planning tool that offers a fresh perspective and actionable insights, I highly recommend giving Maxifi a try.

Congrats to Economic Security Planning on launching MaxiFiPlanner.com. I'm loving it. You folks are true pioneers, and I applaud all that you do.

Very easy to follow and to find what I want. I like the ease of access to the information on the fly.

Great help. Thanks! I really like your software. I have an Excel model I've developed over the last few years but this is SO much easier.

I have run four scenarios since I purchased MaxiFi one week ago and the program is very impressive. It is pretty easy to use, allows a lot of tailoring of inputs, gives good help tips and has calculating power above and beyond what I will ever put together.

Thank you so much for your fantastic support and prompt replies. I think your product is phenomenal and has given me peace of mind in my look into the future for my retirement. I have already recommended it to several others.

I needed to quickly find and use some cash-based financial planning software to make a major financial decision. After checking around, I settled on trying ESPlanner or MaxiFi. I tried MaxiFi. Great software tool and great support, even on the weekends. Now I see why you have the great testimonials on your website.

​I came across your financial planning software after years of frustration working with financial planners. Those programs are worse than useless. But your software is amazing! It’s easy to use and so rational/clear in how it is designed – obviously designed by an economist! I love that the program tells you what you can spend. So simple. I feel like we finally have our arms around retirement planning.

I find MaxiFi Planner to be extremely helpful. It enables me to input a great level of detail regarding our current situation, and is then easy to use in generating very valuable and insightful future scenarios. And you keep it current with respect new laws, and providing upgraded features. Keep up the great work!

I love MaxiFi! Having the ability to run limitless scenarios minimizes the guesswork of long-term planning.

GREAT Product!! I track my finances in Quicken and have been using their Lifetime Planner. The MaxiFi planner technique with smoothing out income to provide the greatest payouts and maximum savings for spending is a real blessing and provides better practical information to follow during retirement than what Quicken provides. MaxiFi also considers Social Security where Quicken does not.

I have found the software easy to use and have created eight or nine scenarios. It has been well worth the money in our retirement planning. I will recommend it to our children as a way to get started planning more effectively.

Maxifi Planner is great. The genius is in its simplicity.

I think the Maxifi program is great because it allows you to see "What if" scenarios vs the Maxifi guys' scenarios. The software is very smart. It helps you plan and get visuals and graphs and tables of what the financial future actually looks like depending on the decisions you make.

I am nearing retirement from Boston University and have been using the MaxiFi Planner for about a year. I am no technical whiz by a long shot, but I find this program easy to use and actually a lot of fun to do. One can look at a number of different scenarios, and learn how to maximize resources and compare a wide variety of options. I believe my husband and I will enjoy a much better retirement without worry because of this program. If we should both live long lives, I can easily see that we will gain tens of thousands of dollars in income over the course of our retirement by applying just one or two maximization principles. And even in the short term, we should be able to spend more in early retirement than I had thought possible and still remain secure in our old age. Thank you so much for designing this excellent program!

Maxifi is great! I also appreciate their ethics in not making customers do auto pay. Maxifi helped us make the right decision.

In a word - Great! The combination of an extraordinary Economist with an accomplished Financial Planner produced the best webinar with the most useful info I’ve enjoyed in my 40 years of listening to others; I’ve been a user of Maxifi for about a year now. I learned capabilities I did not know were there.

Great product . . . just a week in and have entered all my base info. Was impressed that it handled the Government WEP and matched the SS website calculation, which my other financial planner couldn't do. Nice upgrade from my previous version of your software, which I lobbied Larry to update a few years ago. Also gave clearer instructions for my wife (also WEP) to just wait to file rather than file/suspend for maybe a few bucks. Simplicity is often overlooked, and under-weighted, in advice.

Thank you so much for creating a truly useful calculator tool, MaxiFi, which is invaluable. I wish I had an access to this decades ago. Now that I learned to use MaxiFi, my previous decision- making process seems to belong to the pre-smart phone era, or frankly stone age, which I refuse to go back to.
MaxiFi is a unique tool, which will calculate retirement cash flow, whether you are in the twenties, seventies, or somewhere in between. One of the most important question to me is: What is a safe amount of money I can withdraw from my (including future) portfolio with little risk of running out of money?
MaxiFi will give you this number without much effort. I currently have a team of financial advisors, because of my institution's retirement accounts. They have a ... grossly different calculator. Their system starts like this: What would you like to spend annually during your retirement years, including needs and wants? From there they will calculate the probability of achieving the goal. The readout is percent success rate. This is completely backward. It is almost a fraud. Your needs and wants at retirement (may not be affordable and, therefore,) have no business within the calculation.

I'd been doing our planning for years, occasionally using ESPlanner Basic (the free version) for a reality check, and was well satisfied. When my wife and I inherited from our parents, the stakes went up and I had a crisis of confidence. I searched for financial planners who might be a good fit and interviewed several. When I asked how they developed and optimized clients' plans, the answer was always "software". I looked around for access to professional financial planning software and found Maxifi, the next generation of ESPlanner. Maxifi's yearly fee is less than one hour of a CFP's time. There's no limit to how much what-if I can do, which is especially important given that the future financial environment might not be a continuation of the past. With easily adjusted worst-case, best-case and in-between scenarios, I feel like I've got the best possible tool for choosing an optimal strategy and making informed decisions.

MaxiFI Planner is an awesome tool. I searched for many months on a retirement financial planning tool and chose MaxiFi . . . very pleased. And customer support is superb :)

I’ve found Maxifi to be the best tool available for retirement income planning. Over the past couple of years I have been using it to determine the amount of Roth conversions to make to maximize the lifetime discretionary spending available to me. I particularly like that Maxfi allows me to adjust income tax rates, Social Security benefits, and Medicare premiums to see how future policy changes would impact my plan and the amount of smooth annual discretionary spending that will be available to me. Most recently, I used Maxifi to develop a strategy for buying an annuity in combination with refinancing my mortgage in a way that will create a higher stream of smooth annual discretionary spending available to me across a wide range of future inflation rates (lower or higher). The support team is always quick to respond and guide me on how to create just about any scenario I can imagine. And, they are continually expanding the features and capabilities of the software.

I have used MAXIFI and predecessor (ESPlanner) to work “what-if” decision scenarios since 2006. In 2019 I migrated to the web-based, much more user friendly and visually appealing MAXIFI tool. The tool provides insight on how big personal decisions can impact your financial future, specifically your all-important “discretionary spending” throughout retirement. The ability to create and compare a base profile to “alternate profiles” quickly and easily gives you real power and is very helpful for those who need data to help make decisions. As an example, I recently used the software to do a “what-if” comparison on 20 vs 30-year home refinance options using my specific timetable and cash constraints. Also, I recently used MAXIFI to review the potential of maintaining two homes for a significant period of time in options on move across the country. Further, I engaged Dan Royer of MAXIFI in a consultation session regarding how I was using the tool for this recent move “what-if” option and his input was extremely valuable and well worth the cost. What-if scenarios are easy to set-up and run for all kinds of important factors, including: 1) expected changes in rate of returns, 2) states where you’ll live, 3) when you start withdrawing retirement funds, 4) when you start withdrawing social security, 5) converting to roth IRAs, 6) lowering living standards in years you choose, and many other options. This software is really powerful in allowing you to make data driven decisions regarding the “spend-to-the-end” plan of retirement.

Thank you. I really appreciate the value of this model - thank you for your hard work and investment to create and make it available for such a reasonable price - much appreciated! Medicare should offer to buy it and make it more widely available, in my not always humble opinion

I have been a MaxiFi customer for 3 years and plan to continue to be a customer in the future.

Some of the things that I find of great value are:

• A very well designed program with just the right number of inputs to take into account the most important variables.
• Calculations and output reports & graphs that would be near impossible to do manually.
• A clever concept that maximizes discretionary spending.
• The ability to create any number of what-if scenarios.
• A wealth of useful reports and graphs.
• Excellent support that is prompt, accurate and helpful. Most questions are answered the same or the next business day.
• It is a great bargain, especially for DIY investors who want control over their financial decision making as I do.

MaxiFi uncovered that my Social Security benefit was incorrect and too low. As a result I have applied for a recalculation. The eventual savings will pay for MaxiFi for 10 years.

When my wife and I got married in 1975, we were assetless baby boomers. We managed our investments ourselves. Today, at age 73 and 74, Maxifi is extending its magic with a new "Upside Investing" tool. "Upside Investing" shows how to drive market risk to the lowest possible level, extremely low, and recommends sustainable, retirement spending at a level we couldn't have imagined ourselves. We can each truly tell the other, "Your investments will be protected after I die." Well done, Dr. Kotlikoff and Maxifi!!!

I would like to recognize Dan Royer‘s outstanding work in client support!

I began using MaxiFi Pro a few months ago after reviewing your very helpful online support videos and tutorials. When my inevitable questions arose, Dan’s responses were generous, extremely insightful, practical and timely! Dan’s ability to communicate in a very understandable way also really helped me. Response time has always exceeded my expectations.

I’m sure glad that ESP has such a solid resource as Dan! I’m looking forward to how MaxiFi can help with my ongoing financial planning analyses.

Sincerely,

Dear MaxiFi Team,
In my humble opinion MaxiFi is the crème de la crème economic life planning tool in the world. Dr. Kotlikoff should receive the Nobel Prize in Economics.
A very happy and grateful user of MaxiFi.
Thank you Dr Kotlikoff,

I started using the software in its format prior to Maxifi. I have examined many FP software programs over the years, including the "big name" programs. I read Professor Kotikoff's books and became a convert to Consumption Smoothing and Economics based financial planning. I love the ability to create multiple plans and compare them. And as an Enrolled Agent, I really like the tax computations. I have passed the Certified Financial Planning course and the conventional FP methods of FP such as determining your "number", taking a percentage of your pre-retirement income/spending, etc. are simply not real life--Maxifi is. And last but certainly not least, the product is very reasonably priced and customer service is fast and accurate. And, finally, what other FP company CEO says, "here is my email and/or phone number; please contact me." NONE But Larry Kotlikoff does. Buy this software if you want real life solutions

I have used the MAXIFI program for the last 4 years. It has provided much more detailed information than any of the other personal finance programs I have tried.
MAXIFI provides many "what if" options with answers given very quickly. At their price, it is a bargain and a valuable use of the time needed for data input. I have found many of the "FREE" programs available to be a waste of my time spent as the answers provided are too simplistic or blatantly inaccurate.

I just have to say thank you to the folks at MaxiFi Planner. I’ve been using MaxiFi for 2 years now and feel much more comfortable about my retirement decisions due to the thorough modeling and projections done by the system. Last week I decided to purchase an “Expert Review” to ensure that I hadn’t input anything incorrectly and so that I could properly model my planned geographic move when I retire. I can’t say enough about my interactions with Dan Royer during my “Expert Review.” Dan was pleasant, super-knowledgeable, and was patient with every question that I asked. I’ll be using the tool every year – just to stay on top of all that occurs as we move through life! GREAT TOOL with GREAT SUPPORT. What more can you ask for?

I first became a user of this software in 2017 while exploring social security claiming options. Right off the bat it showed a huge financial benefit after I ran different scenarios which made it clear that age 70 claiming would have had a significant positive impact on my lifetime discretionary expenses. After experience with numerous other software programs to determine the strength or weakness of my financial assets and income, the use of Magnifi was a refreshing experience. Others only showed me where I might be financially deficient based upon some fictional income requirement established by me. Maxifi was just the opposite. It showed me expected discretionary income based on a reasonable return on my investments. A whole different approach to planning, and the ability to sleep at night. As my investments have grown over time, and my life situation has changed, use of the program has given me a clear view of my financial condition. More recently it has allowed me to answer question of whether Roth conversions made sense, and when to do them. Also I am using it set up my trust distributions . Maxifi has clear and comprehensive documentation for answers to questions of the program's many features, and an excellent "human" help resource by Dan and others to give fast answers. Many videos and biweekly "office hours" webinars are very useful. Upgrades such as the Roth conversion analysis capability are constantly in the works. Needless to say I am a believer, and find my annual fee to be more than reasonable for the benefits offered.

I recently had the opportunity to use Financial Engines--I think MaxiFi is a vastly better product.

I have no affiliation with anyone at this company. I am currently 54. retired and have no concern about running out of money thanks to this tool. I find MaxiFi Planner to be very user-friendly and very very valuable. The detail in which you can enter and the information you can then extract covering Social Security benefits, taxes, Medicare premiums plus precise spending, saving, and life insurance guidance is awesome. It allows you to do endless what if scenarios. It's particularly helped me with housing decisions.

Ever since I was 30 I focused on how much money I needed for retirement. Maxifi lets you understand the impact of your decisions and how that will affect your future annual income from your retirement funds. The only other way I know to do this is through a very complicated Excel spreadsheet. I also built an Excel spreadsheet to confirm some of MaxiFi's analysis. Wherever there was a deviation I did an Expert Review with the company to understand where I was off. Retirement is very important and taking the time to analyze what you need from a financial perspective is critical. The other aspect of this tool is you can put in your own portfolio of stocks and other financial instruments and create a Monte Carlo simulation of your living standard. Again I even back-tested this scenario out through other software and felt very confident in the answers the software was giving me.